A boss giving orders is not having a conversation
Nobody has a watertight definition of conversation, so it is often described by what it excludes. Swapping ritual greetings does not count. Neither does a boss issuing instructions, nor a meeting locked onto one tight agenda. What remains is informal, roughly equal talk whose real purpose is keeping people connected.
One authority sums it up as speech that is informal, symmetrical and aimed at building and maintaining social ties. An early twentieth-century etiquette writer put it more gently, as the polite give and take of topics among people talking for company. Because conversation is a social act, it runs on convention. Its rules flow from the cooperative principle, each remark answering what came before, and when people stop following them the exchange falters and eventually ends.
The word itself hints at the key ingredient, since the con- means with. Conversation is typically synchronous, happening in real time face to face, on a video call or by phone. Written messages online, which can be answered hours later or never, sit awkwardly outside it. One estimate holds that 85 percent of face-to-face communication is non-verbal: a shrug, a frown, a tone of voice. That helps explain why short text messages are so easily misread.
Talk is not always the best tool. For an even swap of information or strengthening a relationship, it is ideal. When a permanent record matters, writing wins, and when time is short, a speech may serve better. Sociologists who study its structure work in a field called conversation analysis, and learning to converse is a central goal when studying a new language.
Banter is conversation as sport: quick, witty lines volleyed back and forth, each trying to top the last, with puns, mock insults and deliberate misunderstandings. It works only with rapport, and the trick is knowing when to stop before the game turns sour. Polite discussion has a similar safety valve, with the subject usually changing before a disagreement hardens into a dispute.
Source: Conversation
